Bruins cannot solve Devils in loss

In Boston,Kyle Palmieri struck for two of the New Jersey Devils’ three second period goals as the they defeated the Bruins, 3-2, on Thursday night.

“Obviously I think coming out of the break, it’s a tough situation for our team to be in, but I really loved [coach Lindy Ruff’s] quote the other day about finding reasons to win,” Palmieri said. “So two games on the road, two big wins, and that’s a good sign of something special here.”

Mackenzie Blackwood made 25 saves in the win.

“The guys played really good and tried to play fast, play hard,” Blackwood said. “Really defensive-minded and took their opportunities when they were there, so they let me see the first shot and kept the secondary stuff to a minimum, and it was a great game all around by everyone.”

After Palmieri scored his two goals, Jake DeBrusk pulled the Bruins within 2-1.

“Yeah, it was nice to score,” DeBrusk said. “Obviously you’d like to do it in a win, but I feel like I was in one of those tough games. I think that I was part of the compete factor, I was trying to get on pucks, trying to get there, but I just felt like I was losing a lot of battles.”

Pavel Zacha pushed the lead back to two goals with a strike late in the middle frame.

“It was good. I knew we were 4-on-4, so I had a little more space in the offensive zone and I saw it was open behind me, so I tried to do the move, the spin-o-rama there,” Zacha said. “And then I made a play to Johansson, which he found me right back, which was a perfect play, and then a kind of [an] empty net.”

Charlie McAvoy scored with 66 seconds left on the clock, but that was as close as the Bruins would get.”I think it was our inability to win 1-on-1 battles, to defend areas of the ice, to give them access to our zone, to not keep forecheck situations alive or even create them,” Boston head coach Bruce Cassidy said. “I just thought they were winning the races, the 1-on-1 battles. We just didn’t want to do what it took to sort of get pucks back and win pucks and hang on to pucks. And as a result, they came at us and were the better team and looked better.”Jaroslav Halak made 23 saves in the loss.